The rendering of this artist shows the Tianwen-2 spatial vehicle which approaches the asteroid of the Earth almost 469219 Kamo’oalewa. Credit: CCTV
Update: The long-March 3B rocket that transported Tianwen-2 it was successfully launched by the Xichang satellite Launch Center in Chinese Sichuan province At 13:31 EDT on Wednesday 28 May.
Six centuries ago, Admiral Zheng has commanded seven “Treasure Travel” in Asia in the Halcyon days of the Chinese Ming dynasty. Its fleet of colossal jackets in four trees-largest ships of their day, each equipped with hundreds of sailors-made the southern Chinese Sea and the Indian Ocean, traveling up to Arabia, the Persian Gulf and Eastern Africa on a mission of diplomacy, trade and projection of power through the known world.
In the same way, the modern Chinese projection of its spacecraft has quickly moved from the dawn of the millennium. China became the third nation after Russia and the United States independently launching a man in space in 2003, before vigorously pursuing a human presence out of floor since 2022. The country has also made little secret of its grandiose ambitions for a human habitat on the moon in the next decade.
China also landed Robot Rover on the lunar surface in 2013 and on Mars in 2021. And marked a couple of first empirical first ones: the first landing of a space vehicle on the Moon company in 2019 and the first return of Farido samples to the land last year.
This summer, a mission originally named in Zheng is honor, but now known as Tianwen-2 will push China more deeply into the space than ever-the first incursion into the asteroid belt. Follows the Tianwen-1 heels, the first mission of Chinese Mars, launched in 2020.
The name of the mission derives from an ancient Chinese poetry of questions addressed to Tian, the mythical personification of the skies. Tianwen-2 will face several questions about the birth of the sun system, the origins of water and the emergence of life.
During his journey of a decade into the deep space, Tianwen-2 will collect surface specimens from 469219 Kamo’oalewa, an object close to the earth in an orbit similar to ours, then will return to them a champion champion for a study of 311 P-abstained in China in China desert in the desert of the Gobi in China in a China Desert in a desert of Gobi in Gobi in Gobi in a desert of Gobi China in a China Desert in a China Desert in 2027. Curious primordial body that brings the distinctive signs of both an asteroid and a comet.
The space vehicle
Conceived in 2019, Tianwen-2 was originally expected for the launch in 2022 but its program slipped. After a design studio of the Chinese Academy of Space Technology, eight scientific tools were selected in October 2019. They include visible and infrared spectrometers, a thermal radiation spectrometer, cameras, a 4 -foot imaging radar (1.2 m), loads and sensors of loaded and neutral particles and a magnetometer.
Russia Academy of Sciences is also contributing with a tool in Tianwen-2 and in 2020, Chinese middle school students and elementary schools were invited to propose popular scientific experiments for the mission.
Tianwen-2 It will be launched at the top of a 3B/and along March rocket from the Xichang satellite Launch Center in Central-Meridial China. Used for the first time in 2007, the impressive pedigree of this rocket includes the launch of the first Lander Moon and Rover of China (Chang’e-3 in 2013) and the first space vehicle to land on the lunar side (Lunar Far (Chang’e-4 in 2018).
After leaving the earth, Tianwen-2 will reach Kamo’oalewa by July 2026. This small and elongated asteroid probably does not last more than 130 to 330 feet (from 40 to 100 meters). About the sun at an average distance from 0.9 to 1.1 astronomical units (au: the average distance of the land of earth) with a sidereal period of 365.7 days, similar orbital parameters on the same land.
On the asteroid
Discovered in April 2016 by the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Panstarrs) at the Haleakala Observatory in Hawaii, it was initially called I have 20163Then renamed Kamo’oalewa in 2019. The name is a Hawaiian native song for an oscillating fragment – a suitable moniker given the movement of the hostile jerk of the asteroid while orbit the land from 38 lunar distances in its point closest to 100 lunar distances at its distant.
The physical proximity of Kamo’oalewa pushed astronomers to label him an quasate-soellite of the earth. It is not gradually linked to us like the moon, and it is too distant to constitute a real natural satellite, yet this small rock has been the constant partner of our planet for more than a century and will probably remain so for at least another 300 years.
Despite its closeness, the tiny dimensions of Kamo’oalewa make our knowledge of a virtual void. It is too small for radars ranging from the earth to establish reliable echoes to estimate its size or shape. We know that it rotates quickly – every 28 minutes – and it could very well be a fragment freed from the moon.
In April 2024, the reconstructions of the dynamics of the impact that constituted the 13.7 miles (22 km) Gordano Bruno, several million years ago they could have expelled debris in the space that in the end reached an orbital resonance 1: 1 with the earth-corresponding to the current position of Kamalewa and to the horrion parameters. In fact, earth -based spectroscopy suggests a lunar (rather than asteroid) origin of its surface materials.
In Kamo’oalewa
When Tianwen-2 arrives in Kamo’oalewa, it will take double methods to capture surface champions. The first, called “touch-and-go”, was used by Japan Hayabusa-2 ASTEROID RYUGU STORIOLA in 2018 and from Osiris-Rex of NASA to Asteroid Bennu in 2020. But Tianwen-2 will also tester a method called “Anchor-and-Attach”, using four robotic arms with pointed exercises for the poster on the surface of the asteroid. This difficult manouvre requires an exquisite guide for space, navigation and control to get close enough for precision sampling. Further issues that further complicate are the rapid rotation of Kamo’oalewa and the low gravity, which require significant automation aboard Tianwen-2.
The spatial vehicle aims to collect between 0.7 and 3.5 ounces (20-100 grams) of regolite by Kamo’oalewa. The surface of the asteroid is thought to be an aggregate of rubble with boulders of size up to a few tens of centimeters and faster particles up to 0.04 inches (1 mm). Tianwen-2 will also measure the mass parameters of Kamo’oalewa: orbital elements, rotation speed, mass, shape, gravitational field and thermal properties.
In case of success, it will mark the first use of the anchoring and attack sampling architecture in deep space. Tianwen-2 will spend up to a year near Kamo’oalewa, departing in April 2027 for the return to Earth. He released the champion of the champion in November 2027 to return to the atmosphere of the Earth in a 35-27,000 mph (43,450 km/h) bladder, 10 percent faster than Apollo’s astronauts during their burning return from the moon.
Ahead of a comet
In the meantime, Tianwen-2 will continue his journey to 311p/Panstarrs, a comet of the main belt also called an active asteroid: an object that lives an orbit similar to asteroids but whose visual characteristics closely reflect a comet. Discovered by Panstarr in August 2013, it measures the diameter of 1,570 feet (480 m – larger than a block of city – and surrounds the sun every 3.24 years at a distance between 1.94 and 2.44 UA.
A month after his discovery, in September 2013, 311p/Panstarr was observed by the Hubble Space Telescope and revealed its oddity, exhibiting substantial structural changes and six queues similar to comets. These can represent material expelled from the loss of episodic mass induced by its rapid rotation, such as avalanches of dust along its equator, then cuts and moves away in the space in frozen queues.
The current plans include Tianwen-2 which reach 311p/Panstarr at the beginning of 2035 for a year of observations. It is hoped that the studies on Kamo’oalewa and 311p/Panstarr will provide new intuitions on the formation and evolution of the bodies of the primordial Solar System and will provide important insights on the origins of water and organic life.
The future of the Tianwen program involves great promises. Tianwen-3, targeting a 2028 launch, will return the first land champions of Mars on Earth, while Tianwen-4 from 2029 will send an orbiter to Jupiter and his rocky moon, Callisto. And Zheng He, the fifteenth century admiral who for a certain period lent his name to Tianwen-2, would certainly have approved the wealth that the modern spatial treasure ships will bring home.
